THE WORLD IS HEADING TO A DOUBLE-DIP: JOBLESS, INFLATION, POVERTY, RECESSION… NIGEL FARAGE THINKS IT’S REVOLUTION TIME

The catch-up boom in China, India, Brazil is largely over and will be followed by a drastic slowdown over the next decade, according to a grim report by America’s top forecasting body.

Europe’s prognosis is even worse, with France trapped in depression with near zero growth as far as 2025 and Britain struggling to raise its speed limit to 1pc over the next three Parliaments.

The US Conference Board’s global economic outlook calls into question the “BRICs” miracle (Brazil, Russia, India, China), arguing that the low-hanging fruit from cheap labour and imported technology has already been picked.

China’s double-digit expansion rates will soon be a romantic memory. Growth will fall to 6.9pc next year, then to 5.5pc from 2014-2018, and 3.7pc from 2019-2025 as the aging crisis hits and investment returns go into “rapid decline”.

Growth in India – where the reform agenda has been “largely derailed” – will fall to 4.7pc to 2018, and then to 3.9pc. Brazil will slip to 3pc and then 2.7pc. Such growth rates will leave these countries stuck in the “middle income trap”, dashing hopes for a quick jump into the affluent league.

“As China, India, Brazil, and others mature from rapid, investment-intensive ‘catch-up’ growth, the structural ‘speed limits’ of their economies are likely to decline,” said the Board.

“Rising fiscal policy uncertainty is having an increasingly negative impact on business activity as the fiscal cliff looms, write the economists led by Vincent Reinhart. “After the status quo election results, the ideological divide that blew up the “Grand Bargain” in 2011 still exists. Risks are significant that a fiscal cliff deal won’t be reached by January 1, potentially a major blow to an economy that appears to be moving into year end with little momentum.”

Jobless claims leap 78,000 to 439,000; storm cited

The damage caused by Hurricane Sandy sent U.S. jobless claims soaring by 78,000 in the week ended Nov. 10 to an 18-month high of 439,000, according to the latest government figures. A Labor Department official on Thursday said claims surged in the eastern parts of the country that laid in the path of the storm….

Meanwhile, rising food costs and higher rents offset a drop in gas prices last month, leaving consumer prices only slightly higher in October compared with the previous month.

The consumer price index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.1 percent in October, down from sharp gains of 0.6 percent in the previous two months, the Labor Department said Thursday. In the past year, prices increased 2.2 percent. That’s just above the U.S. Federal Reserve’s inflation target of 2 percent.

The cost of shelter, which includes rents, rose 0.3 percent, the most in more than four years. Clothes and airline fares also rose, while the price of new and used cars fell.

The eurozone has tumbled into a double-dip recession as the crisis in Portugal, Spain and Greece spreads to other countries in the currency bloc.

Eurozone GDP fell by 0.1% in the third quarter, after shrinking by 0.2% in the second quarter, plunging the region into a recession that economists fear could drag into next year.

The big surprise was the triple-A rated Netherlands, which saw its economy shrink by 1.1% in the third quarter, dragged lower by a 3.1% decline in investment and a 2.4% drop in exports. Economists had expected Dutch GDP to contract by just 0.2%. Austrian GDP also shrank by 0.1%.

Massive anti-austerity strikes and protests swept across Europe as millions took to the streets to express their frustration over rising unemployment and dire economic prospects. Many rallies ended with violent clashes with police.

Workers marched in 23 countries across Europe to mark the European Day of Action and Solidarity.

General strikes had been called in Spain and Portugal, paralyzing public services and international flights, in Belgium and France transport links were partially disrupted by strikes and demonstrations, in Italy and Greece thousands of workers and students marched through the streets.

Other EU countries, such as Germany, Austria and Poland, saw well attended union-led rallies.

The Europe-wide strike action, the largest in a series of protests against the austerity policies, was coordinated by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and promoted on Twitter under the “#14N” hashtag.